Fanfiction

 The audio version of this post can be downloaded here.

Chances are if you enjoy reading or writing, you’ve come across fanfiction during your travels. Most of it was probably horrendous, though you may have found a few gems as well. If you did, you were far luckier than I. Despite being a genre bereft of quality, there is something to be said about fanfiction. There has never been a stronger congregation of love and hate in a single space.

I can’t say I’ve had a very extensive visit with it, reading or writing. I have always been the kind of person who wanted to read what actually happened, not what could have. Not to mention I’m also a nonfiction reader. There isn’t much fanfiction about actual historical figures. Even then, I prefer to write my own mental storyline. But that’s another story altogether that I shouldn’t be writing here.

The fanfiction arena is also a mecca for petty arguments and clique battles rivaled only by the middle school and high school environment. Characterization, romantic pairings, anything you can think of. Romance is generally the most heated. Not siding with the pairing of characters A and B automatically makes you wrong and a heathen bastard in the eyes of a large group. If you side with characters C and D, another group may take you into their forum, which is all about why the people who like A and B are wrong. If you prefer A and C together, well then you’re just insane and doomed to have no friends.

Inane discussion and poor quality aside, the presence of fanfiction would be the ultimate indicator of my success as a writer. After all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I’m not sure I would read very much of it, but I would attempt to read at least a few. I like to think of it as a gauge for the reading populace and who likes what character. Or who wants to do immoral and possibly illegal things to what character. But the latter is generally a detail I’ll choose to forget.

There are some writers who disagree with me. The first author that comes to mind is Ann Rice. Think what you will of her writing, I personally dislike it. Whatever rocks your raft, fine by me. For those of you unaware, she will not allow fan works of any kind. People in the past have chosen to ignore this rule, but they were met with ill will, to put it mildly. From what I understand, lawsuits have even been threatened if the offending material was not taken down. I wouldn’t be surprised if she wanted to sue me for slander based on this post. I only hope her born-again Christianity has brought a little more peace to her.

A ban on fanfiction, to me, is a sign of fear. A fear that the writing fan may upstage the author. Even if that does happen, who cares? The majority of the fanbase will continue to read the author’s work to keep up with the original storyline, if a series is present. If it isn’t, at least it’s an incentive for the author to get better.

Come to think of it, it’s also a sign of greed. It screams “IT’S MY STORY, DAMMIT. YOU CAN’T HAVE IT.” If the story is legitimately published, everyone knows it’s your story. Your name is on the dust jacket. But who says fans can’t enjoy that story in their own ways? Who are you as a writer to stifle someone’s creativity? If someone had stifled yours, would you be a writer in the first place? Probably not.

With that note, I’m going to end this post. The discussion point is obvious this time around. Do you like fanfiction? Would you allow it for your works?